Four dead and 12 injured in Russian drone attacks on apartment buildings and energy sites in Ukraine

A Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in eastern Ukraine early Saturday while many people were sleeping, killing three people and injuring 12 others, Ukrainian authorities said.

The attack on Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city, was part of a major Russian missile and drone bombardment across the country that specific electrical infrastructure. It also killed a worker at an energy company in Kharkiv, further north, a local official said.

A fire broke out in the nine-story building in Dnipro and several apartments were destroyed, according to emergency services. Rescue teams recovered the bodies of three people and among the injured were two children.

Russia fired a total of 458 drones and 45 missiles, including 32 ballistic missiles. Ukrainian forces shot down and neutralized 406 drones and nine missiles, the air force said, adding that 25 locations were hit.

Authorities cut power to several regions due to the attacks, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk said in a Facebook post.

In eastern Ukraine, the fight over the strategic city of Pokrovsk has reached a key stage, with both kyiv and Moscow competing to persuade it. US President Trump that they can win on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that work has begun on President Vladimir Putin’s order to prepare plans for a possible Russian nuclear testaccording to the state news agency Tass.

Putin’s order on Wednesday followed statements by Mr. Trumpwhich seemed to suggest that Washington would restart its own atomic tests for the first time in three decades.

Nearly four years after its full invasion, Russia has been hitting Ukraine with almost daily drone and missile attacks, leaving many civilians dead and injured. The Kremlin claims its only objectives are linked to Kyiv’s war effort. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that the overnight strikes hit military and energy sites that supply Ukrainian forces.

Moscow and kyiv have traded almost daily attacks on each other’s energy targets, while U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the nearly four-year war had no impact on the battlefield.

Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries are aimed at depriving Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to continue the war. Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what kyiv officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

Meanwhile, Russian forces repelled a “massive” overnight attack on energy facilities in the southern Volgograd region, its governor Andrei Bocharov said on Saturday, two days after Ukraine claimed to have attacked a key oil refinery there with long-range drones. Bocharov added that the attack knocked out power in parts of the northwestern region, but caused no casualties. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that its forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones overnight, including eight over the Volgograd region. Two people were injured in the neighboring Saratov region after a Ukrainian drone strike blew out the windows of an apartment block, according to regional governor Roman Busarin.

Pokrovsk lies along the eastern front line, part of what has been called the Donetsk “fortress belt”, a line of heavily fortified towns crucial to Ukraine’s defense of the region. It could also be a key point in influencing Washington’s stance and influencing the course of peace negotiations, analysts say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his forces are on the verge of winning. As a prerequisite for peace, it demands that Ukraine cede Donbas, made up of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, one of its main war targets.